Manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and other processing entities with facilities (which may collectively be referred to as materials handling facilities) typically receive, process and send (e.g., sell) materials. For example, retailers, wholesalers, and other product distributors (which may collectively be referred to as distributors) typically order, receive and maintain an inventory of various items that may be ordered by clients or customers for delivery. Distributors may receive inventory at an area of a facility, for example at a receive area. Items may be received from various sources such as vendors, manufacturers, other distributors, other facilities of the same distributor or from various other sources, for example. The items may be received on pallets, in bins, or other containers in heterogeneous groups or homogenous groups, for example, but also may be received as singles.
Some distributors receive the inventory at the receiving area where it may be broken down into smaller groups and may then be sent to an inventory area for stowing. When groups of items, (e.g., pallets or cases of items) are desired for shipment from the facility, the distributor may take the time to reconstruct the pallets or cases of items from an inventory area where the items were stowed to after being received to the receiving area.
For facilities with a sortation process, some groups of items (e.g., groups or containers of heterogeneous items) that are received may be sent from the receiving area to a sortation area where the items may be sorted before being sent to a customer or another facility. For example, some items that are received at a distributor may be destined for another destination, such as another distribution facility. Some such items may not be sent into inventory for stowing, but rather sorted from other items (e.g., sorted from items going to other destinations or inventory) and directed to an outbound dock of the facility without ever being stowed to inventory in the facility. Such routing of sorted items may be referred to as crossdocking Transshipments (e.g., shipments between distribution facilities of a common distributor) may be performed as well. Given that supporting a crossdocking process may require a sortation process, for example, when a container otherwise eligible for crossdock includes a group of items destined for different destinations, distribution facilities without a sortation process may not implement crossdocking.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that the embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.